WordPress Hosting with the benefits of Cloud Hosting
Cloud Hosting is an environment where your website will draw upon resources from a cluster or network of servers instead of just one. This can increase speed and reliability because the work is spread out over many servers.
WordPress Hosting is a hosting environment that’s specifically designed to cater to WordPress websites. Every aspect of the server is set up with WordPress reliability, speed, security and ease-of-use in mind.
What is HostGator WordPress Cloud Hosting?
HostGator WordPress Cloud Hosting is a combination of WordPress and Cloud hosting. HostGator’s cloud hosting for WordPress combines low-density servers with a fast, global CDN to provide fast, reliable, scalable cloud hosting.
When you combine these two together, you get an extremely fast, secure, reliable hosting environment for your WordPress website. HostGator is one of only a handful of companies that offer WordPress Cloud hosting at the time of writing this review.
Advantages of HostGator WordPress Hosting
Speed
Up to 1 second faster page load times than normal shared hosting.
Security
A higher level of protection against WordPress specific attacks.
Reliability
Little to no downtime and automatic WordPress updates/backups.
How Many Websites can be Hosted on HostGator?
The hosting plan you sign up for determines how many websites you can host on HostGator. For the plans below, you can host 1, 2 or 3 sites. There are other hosting options that will let you host several websites on HostGator depending upon how much traffic each site receives.
If you select any of the HostGator WordPress hosting plans you can switch to the plan with 1, 2 or 3 sites that are featured as well as two Pro plans, the first with 10 sites and the second with 20.
All WordPress Cloud Hosting Plans Feature:
Free SSL Certificate
HostGator has recently started providing a free Comodo SSL certificate with all their hosting plans. This will protect your visitors sensitive information and boost your Google Rankings.
Free $100 Adwords Credits
Get a free voucher for $100 in Google AdWords® credit when you sign up for Hostgator WordPress Cloud hosting or any other web hosting plan that they offer.
2.5x Faster
Get up to 2.5X faster load times for your WordPress website due to super charged cloud architecture, low-density servers, CDN, and multiple caching layers.
Free Global CDN Included
HostGator’s Global CDN refers to a globally distributed group of servers which work together to provide a faster delivery of Internet content around the world.
Codeguard Site Backup and Restore
Daily automatic backups that give you a plan against viruses, hackers, and even your own code accidentally breaking your site. Receive email notifications for any unauthorized changes.
Easy to Use Control Panel
A WordPress Cloud Interface focused on usability, minimizing the complexities of more traditional web hosting or those of other cloud web hosts. This platform does not use cPanel.
Free WordPress Migrations
Depending on which plan you choose, they will transfer 1, 2, or 3 existing WordPress sites over. You won’t experience any interruption or downtime during the migration process.
SiteLock Advanced Security
SiteLock’s firewall and vulnerability scans help prevent hacks and automated attacks on your website. Their malware protection service helps protect your WordPress files from corruption.
HostGator vs Media Temple vs WP Engine
HostGator WordPress Cloud hosting has Media Temple and WP Engine beat by a mile when it comes to what you get for the money. Below is a chart that compares two of the top competitors. For the same price (or cheaper), you get more of everything, plus a global CDN, email hosting and site migration is included, too.
As you can see above, Hostgator beats Media Temple and WP Engine on almost every aspect. Hostgator has them both beat by a wide margin on price. Storage is 15 times larger than WP Engine and 5 times bigger than Media Temple. Both Media Temple and WP Engine charge a hefty price for the Global CDN which is included free with Hostgator, and neither one of these companies offer the Free $100 Adwords credits.
Speed and Uptime
I signed up for a free account at pingdom.com about 6 months ago to monitor the average uptime and speed of Zuziko. The results were surprisingly good. Hostgator’s average response time over a 5 month period was a blazing 348ms, this beats the industry average by more than 50%. The uptime was equally impressive averaging at 99.97% uptime over 5 months.
Speed Performance Over a 5 Month Period
September
Average response time:
339ms
October
Average response time:
356ms
November
Average response time:
318ms
December
Average response time:
385ms
January
Average response time:
344ms
Uptime Over the a 5 Month Period
September
Uptime this month:
99.89%
Uptime
October
Uptime this month:
100%
Uptime
November
Uptime this month:
100%
Uptime
December
Uptime this month:
99.99%
Uptime
January
Uptime this month:
100%
Uptime
WordPress Cloud Hosting Plans
HostGator offers three WordPress Cloud Hosting plans available: Starter Plan, Standard Plan and Business Plan. The Starter Plan is their basic plan and the Business Plan hast the most storage, maximum hosted WordPress sites and computer power.
At first glance, the downside of HostGator WordPress Cloud hosting is the cost. You will spend almost double when compared to shared hosting. I would not let this turn you away though. From my experience it’s worth every penny in the long run to have the extra reliability, speed and security WordPress Cloud hosting offers.
As you can see above, there are three different plans to choose from. Hostgator can be a little sneaky with their pricing so, below I will go over what all this actually means.
- Starter Plan » $5.95/Month for 36 Months or $14.95 Monthly.
- Standard Plan » $7.95/Month for 36 Months or $20.95 Monthly.
- Business Plan » $9.95/Month for 36 Months or $27.95 Monthly.
Starter Plan ($5.95/Month for 36 Months or $14.95 Monthly)
- Maximum WordPress Sites: 1
- Average Monthly Traffic Allowance: 100,000
- Relative Compute Power: 2x
- Free Full-Service WordPress Migrations: 1
- Automated DB Backup Allotment: 3 GB
- Automatic Malware Removal: Included
- Storage Space: Unmetered
- Google AdWords Credit: $100
- Free SSL Certificate: Yes
Standard Plan ($9.95/Month for 36 Months or $20.95 Monthly)
- Maximum WordPress Sites: 2
- Average Monthly Traffic Allowance: 200,000
- Relative Compute Power: 2x
- Free Full-Service WordPress Migrations: 2
- Automated DB Backup Allotment: 2 GB
- Automatic Malware Removal: Included
- Storage Space: Unmetered
- Google AdWords Credit: $100
- Free SSL Certificate: Yes
Business Plan ($7.95/Month for 36 Months or $27.95 Monthly)
- Maximum WordPress Sites: 3
- Average Monthly Traffic Allowance: 500,000
- Relative Compute Power: 5x
- Free Full-Service WordPress Migrations: 3
- Automated DB Backup Allotment: 3 GB
- Automatic Malware Removal: Included
- Storage Space: Unmetered
- Google AdWords Credit: $100
- Free SSL Certificate: Yes
I wanted to show that you can only get the lower price if you make the commitment and sign up for 36 months. It’s a lot of money to put up front but they do offer a 45 day money back guarantee. If you are not happy for any reason within that 45 day period they will refund you the full amount.
How to Save Yourself Some Money
I have been a long time customer and affiliate of HostGator. Because of this, I am able to offer you one of the highest discounts you can find online. If you decide HostGator is right for you go to our HostGator coupon page and find the code you need. Or just click the button below and you will be sent to our exclusive discount page.
Exclusive Deal For Zuziko Readers
HostGator Support
There has been a slow decline in HostGator’s support over the last few years but the quality and variety of support they offer is still unmatched. I have used over twenty different web host in the last seven years and Hostgator’s support is still the best as far as getting your questions answered quickly and correctly. HostGator offers four different types of support:
Live Chat
This is probably the quickest way to get things resolved. From my experience, you will get connected with someone in about fives minutes on average. Although I have waited as long as thirty minutes.
Phone
If you are having trouble explaining things through live chat you can always call them 24/7/365. Just like live chat, phone support is always available.
Sometimes you might need to send your website files or screenshots to help someone understand your problem. This is when email would be the best option.
Ticket
Sometimes you might have a problem that is difficult to solve. You will be asked to make a ticket (or they will create it for you) and someone with more experience will take a look.
Pros
Free Comodo SSL
Free Global CDN
Fast Response Times
Uptime Guarantee
Quality Support
Cons
High Renewal Cost
No Free Domain
No cPanel
Upselling
Limited Websites
My Final Thoughts
HostGator is a well-established presence in the web hosting industry and for good reason. They offer a diversified set of WordPress hosting plans, which are built with scalability in mind. Every plan comes with a free Comodo SSL, free Global CDN, a 45-day money-back guarantee. So if you are interested in giving them a try, you can do so with no risk.
I only write reviews about companies or products I think are worthy of actually recommending and HostGator WordPress Cloud hosting has met or exceeded all my expectations over the last four years.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. HostGator is a great company and we have been using them for WordPress hosting for several years now with no significant issues to report. We would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a fast, reliable WordPress web host at a very competitive price. If you are using WordPress, I think HostGator WordPress Cloud hosting would be a great option.
While both are good companies, we find HostGator to be better than GoDaddy for our WordPress needs. With most things being equal, HostGator customer service edges out GoDaddy in our experience. If we were buying a domain, GoDaddy would be the one to choose.
HostGator WordPress Cloud Hosting Review
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Speed
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Security
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Reliability
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Support
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Price
Summary
With the impressive uptime, fast server response times, a quick global CDN, excellent customer support and plenty of the extras and freebies, HostGator WordPress Cloud Hosting really is among the best web site hosts to host your WordPress website.
They do have cPanel, I just checked. Not sure why it’s on your ‘cons’ list?
Hi Stephanie,
If you purchase a normal Cloud Hosting package at Hostgator it will include cPanel but the WordPress Hosting package which runs on a cloud interface does not.